Eternal Soul
by Ricky Pine
Summary: ***THIS FIC IS SET AFTER THE SEASON 3 FINALE OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. MAJOR SPOILERS WILL BE INCLUDED WITHIN. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.*** An Eternal Soul can never die. It's time for Ichabod Crane's beloved Leftenant to come back to this earthly plane. But to make her way back, she'll need a bit of help from a fellow dead person - one who has a bit of unfinished business of his own.
1. In A World Lit Only By Fire

_**CHAPTER 1: IN A WORLD LIT ONLY BY FIRE**_

I guess whoever designed this afterlife waiting room didn't know electricity was ever a thing. At least I've had time to learn how to cook without the aid of a microwave. Or even a gas oven. Why I still need to eat, I'm not sure. Granted, I eat and drink far less than before, but I do need to do so occasionally. Maybe it's just the afterlife's way of easing my transition from my mortal coil or something.

But just as I'm about to pull another day's pot of stone soup off the hearth (hey, don't knock it till you try it), I hear (speaking of knocks) someone rapping on the door. I almost drop the pot - I've been in this place for what feels like years and not had a visitor since Crane said goodbye. I'm so not used to this - it's even worse than the last long-ass time I spent somewhere other than Earth.

Opening the door, I'm surprised, just a bit, to see someone who died not so long before I did. "Joe? How'd you...how'd you find me?"

"Sure as hell took me long enough," he says. He doesn't even try to cross the threshold - he just stands on the porch. Of all the places I had the chance to make my afterlife look like, I could think of none better than Sheriff Corbin's cabin. He'd probably feel just as much at home here - but he's looking agitated, like he wants nothing more than to turn around and leave all over again. "Listen, Abbie...we need to go back home."

"Hey, I wanna go back too," I say, "but...I mean, we spent so long fighting gods and monsters - what happens when we come back as just another monster?" I turn around for a moment, watching the pot continue to radiate heat as it sits on the table. "What do we even need to do, anyway?"

Joe takes a deep breath - didn't know he needed to do that, but maybe it's just a reflexive relic of his past life or something. "First...just one question. How long have you been down here?"

"Dunno. A year? Eighteen months?"

"More like two," says Joe. "Months, that is."

I raise my eyebrows. "You're on the level here, right? You're not just some illusion sent by Pandora or whoever to trick me?"

"Rumor has it Pandora's just as dead as we are," Joe says, "but I could be wrong. Anyway...see, here's the thing. Upstairs, our friends are still doing their thing. Witnessing." He clears his throat. "And that's the problem - yesterday, these guys claiming to be 'federal agents'" - insert air quotes here - "came and took him away."

"I'm guessing they're not?"

"You guess r-" He stiffens, then whirls around, reaching to his hip for a holstered gun that isn't there.

I step up behind him and tiptoe to look over his shoulder, my muscle memory similarly tricking me. Then I see what Joe's looking at - a young woman in her twenties with flaming red hair. She stumbles out of the bushes outside - bushes beyond which I've not yet ventured myself - and looks up at us. "Uh...hi?" she asks in a nervous voice that cracks like that of a teenage boy.

"Hi to you too," I say. "Two visitors? This must be my lucky day."

"Okay..." Redhead scratches her neck. "Uh...could I...I'm sorry, but I'm kinda lost. I need to get back to the Bay Area, and I think I'm way off course here..."

"How'd you get here?" Joe asks, as if she's just an ordinary traveler.

"The same way I always do," says Redhead. "Through the Mission Peak caves."

"'Always?'" I repeat.

"I can visit this afterlife dimension for some reason," she says. "I'm always getting lost, but I always get back home eventually. Except now I've been stuck here for a week...oh God, my parents are gonna kill me!"

I tilt my head at Joe. "Okay, that's cool. She knows exactly what steaming dog crap she's gotten into."

"I have a name, you know," Redhead says with a small smile.

"That name being...?" Joe asks.

She pauses just long enough to come across as melodramatic. "Nikki. Nikki Lass."

Joe and I similarly introduce ourselves, and I tell Nikki, "So you're aware Joe and I are dead?"

"I don't think so," says Nikki. "Your auras aren't the same. The dead usually have black auras, and yours are a little more...blood-red?"

"Maybe it's 'cause we're pretty freshly dead, relatively speaking," Joe says.

"I've asked around enough to know that's not the reason," says Nikki. "Everyone who's dead has a black aura no matter how long it's been since they were alive." She turns around and gazes into the depths of the shrubbery. "Come on, guys, I really do need your help. Seriously, I can't be here forever. And...well, I couldn't help but overhear, but you sound like you've got some unfinished business back home yourselves?"

Joe glares at her for a moment, but then his expression softens. "I dunno, Abbie. What do you think? We help her, she helps us?"

"Sounds cool to me," I say, "except...you still haven't told me who those 'federal agents' are."

"It's the Roosters," he says.

I blink at him. "Never heard of them." A quick glance at Nikki confirms that she's drawing as much of a blank as I am.

"Trust me on this," says Joe, "they're bad news."

"You'll take me home?" Nikki asks.

I step around Joe and close the door behind me, sealing off the smell of my stone soup. "But first, you'll have to help us get outta this place."


	2. Pariah Dogs

_**CHAPTER 2: PARIAH DOGS**_

Nikki scratches behind her ear. "Easier said than done," she says, her chipper mask starting to crack. "I mean, I've been lost here before from time to time, but never like this."

"Being lost has never stopped us before, right?" I tilt my head at Joe until he nods in agreement with me.

"No, good point," Joe says. "I just hope I can remember the way...it was all I could do not to start dropping bread crumbs."

"Assuming you had any bread to crumb," I point out. "In which case, that would've gone very well with my dinner."

Joe looks up, then sticks his head through the front door. "What is that, chicken noodle?"

I shake my head. "Stone soup."

Nikki snickers to herself. "I'm sorry," she says when Joe and I swivel our heads her way in creepy unison. "I just...I sort of remember getting that story read to me when I was a kid."

"What? Stone soup?" Joe covers his mouth as he starts to laugh as well. "You know what, she's right. I remember it too. Sort of."

I close the door - the aroma's making my mouth water again. "What can I say? Random childhood memories came to mind when I started cooking this, and the name just stuck."

"You mean like how this door's stuck?" Sure enough, as Joe tries to reopen the door, it stays stubbornly in place. He pushes hard, but it refuses to budge.

I gnash my teeth, then pull on Joe's arm until he backs away. No need for him to lapse into full-on Wendigo mode or anything. "I swear, if I had my gun on me, I'd have just shot the doorknob off years ago."

"But it hasn't been years," Joe reminds me.

"It feels that way to me. I know you said it's only been a couple of months, but..."

My voice trails off, and Nikki breaks the silence a few seconds later by clearing her throat. "Time just goes slowly around here. Sometimes, I think it's backwards, even. I could walk into this dimension, then come back and I won't have left for ten minutes yet." She chuckles to herself, a soft laugh that reminds me, strangely, of Jenny. "You can imagine how much I wanted to give myself a time paradox."

I have to ask. "Did you?"

"No, but not for lack of trying." She laughs again, then turns around and looks at the bushes. "So...where do we go from here?"

Joe raises his eyebrows. "I barely know any of the songs from _Into The Woods,_ but..."

"Hey, don't look at me," I say, holding up my hands. "And I'm not gonna hold hands with you guys and start singing 'We're Off To See The Wizard' either. Just sayin'."

"We weren't gonna do that," Joe laughs. "Death sure turned you salty, didn't it?"

"The better for you to not eat me with," I say, elbowing his ribs. "Okay...we're going, I guess. Nobody's got a ton of baggage to bring along, right?" Pause. "Good, 'cause we're doing TSA rules on this trip. Carry-ons only."

"They still do that?" asks Nikki.

"That's one of my dad's jokes," says Joe.

"Yeah, you're right." I flash him a thumbs-up. "Now just make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their upright and locked positions, kids. Joe stiffens, then looks into the woods. "Another traveling companion?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "Get back!" he yells. "Other side of the house! Now!"

Again, I find myself reaching for a nonexistent gun. "What is it?" I ask.

Nikki follows Joe's gaze, then pales and curses under her breath. "Oh, this is really bad," she says. "Last time I saw one of these, I barely got out alive!"

"Someone tell me what the hell this is!" I whisper harshly as we run to the other side of the cabin. "And how we kill it!"

"Funny you should say 'hell,'" says Nikki. "Well..."

She doesn't have to keep on talking. Before she can finish her sentence, the bushes rustle. I peek around the corner just long enough to see a massive canine form leaping out.

A hellhound? Seriously?

Wait a second...why isn't it barking? Sure, it's leaping out and snapping its jaws open and shut, but there's no sound coming from its mouth.

"That's not right," I say. "I hear those things howling at the moon all the time. They're never quiet."

"Until now," says Joe. "I bet those guys that have Ichabod did this."

"Those guys being...?" I ask.

He swallows nervously as the hellhound paws the ground, then walks closer to us. "The Church of Atropos," he says.


	3. A Certain Measure Of Innocence

_**CHAPTER 3: A CERTAIN MEASURE OF INNOCENCE**_

"Atropos?" I repeat. "That's...that's Greek, right? One of the Fates?"

"I thought it was a Fury," says Nikki.

"Abbie's got it right," says Joe. Nikki shrinks, looking embarrassed. Joe then clears his throat and continues, "She's the one responsible for determining when it's your time to die."

I peek around the side of the house again, wishing that hellhound could just shoo already before we have to deal with it. I'm pretty sure we'll have to deal with it sooner rather than later, but that's still extremely low priority on my to-do list. "Death, huh?" I say. "I thought that was Thanatos or whatever."

"No, no, Thanatos is just the god of death," Nikki whispers. "I guess he's just too much of a lazy ass to take care of it all himself."

The hellhound looks up, as if it heard her insulting...wait, is Thanatos, if he exists, even its master? If so, it's probably supremely offended on his behalf right about now.

Nikki looks ready to back down from her words, but I poke my head around the corner long enough to see the hellhound coming this way, sniffing the ground loudly. "No, keep it up," I tell her. "It knows you're making a mockery of death itself. Go on."

Joe stares at me. "Are you out of your mind? Abbie-"

"I have an idea for how to stop this doggie," I say. The sniffing stops - the hellhound must be listening hard.

"Humanely, I hope?"

"Probably not," I admit, "but considering it'd probably cut us up the first chance it got...'cause it's totally not compensating for something, am I right or am I right?" _Sniff, sniff._ "Hmm. Must be a she-hound. Nobody try and kick her in the balls, okay?" All quiet on the hellhound front. "What? I wasn't even trying to insult her on that one...but whatever. Nikki, you got any verbal ammo left?"

This has got to be one of the most cuckoo-bananas horrors I've ever encountered in my days as a Witness. A silent hellhound that scares you with subtle reactions to teasing? Who comes up with this crap? Thanatos has a lot to answer for, I guess. Especially a sick, twisted sense of humor, which may not even count as humor by human standards. Gods are just that much different from us, I guess. So bizarre.

Nikki snaps her fingers, then hisses, "Hey assbutt! You don't scare me - I've met a crossroads demon!"

I can't help but roll my eyes at how bad that is, but she probably has little to no experience working under pressure anyway. Even the hellhound snorts at it and turns away. I, however, have a great idea in mind, one that Ichabod once used on an unsuspecting baseball umpire while learning the fine art of trash talking. "Hey! Basket-face!" I yell. "I thought only horses slept standing up!"

Oh, that does it, all right. The hellhound spins around and runs after me. I order Joe and Nikki to take cover, then lead the hound on a merry dance around the cabin. Two complete circuits around the perimeter. After the second lap, I dart back into the house, where the others are busy rooting through my silverware drawer for knives. But I've got another plan. I heft the pot of stone soup out of the fire, then fling it at the hellhound, splashing it right in the face. Immediately, the hot soup dissolves the hound's skull, sizzling on contact with its pelt. Joe and Nikki cry out in shock at the sight, both dropping the knives they've got in hand. As for me, I just hold my nose against the smell of mingled soup and ichor and other assorted cranial entrails.

"How the hell...?" Joe asks, but his voice trails off.

Nikki, meanwhile, sniffs the air. "Ugh...is that...no. I thought that stuff only worked on vampires."

I laugh as the hound sinks to the ground, dead. "If so, why do vampires live in this place? Garlic is so plentiful around here."

Joe snickers. "Remind me not to kiss you, huh, Abbie?"

"Consider yourself reminded," I say. "Now that you guys have all my knives on display, why don't we take one or two each? They're the only weapon we've got for now, so we might as well get all the mileage we can out of them."

Two minutes later, once I'm satisfied we're safe and sound and free of hellhounds, I lead the way beyond the bounds of the cabin, a knife in each hand. Now's the time for me to start humming songs from _Into The Woods._ We're finally getting somewhere...I hope.


	4. Here We Go, Vertigo

_**CHAPTER 4: HERE WE GO, VERTIGO**_

Thickets. Nothing but thickets everywhere. That's what exists beyond the walls of the cabin, and in the absence of halfway-decent machetes, Joe, Nikki, and I are forced to hack and slash through the spiky stems all around us with my knives. We're making so little progress, it's not even funny. I'd ask Joe some questions about the Church of Atropos or whatever. Or I'd ask Nikki to explain how she got here a little better. But it's taking all our concentration to get through this double-damned mess.

I mean, bloody hell...

I stop and hold up my fist as I hear something crunching behind me - and it's neither of my traveling companions. "You hear that?" I ask.

"It's not the bloody hellhound again, is it?" asks Nikki.

Joe and I both do double takes - she's not British, so hearing that word come out of her mouth is a bit strange. Not to mention, it makes me think of Ichabod. Not that I don't want to think of him, but I really don't need the additional distraction right now.

"It can't be," I say. "Unless I only killed it temporarily...which would _not_ surprise me."

"How typical," says Joe. "Dead things don't just stay dead. Which, I know, is ironic coming from a guy who's currently on a mission to return from the dead himself. Go figure."

Nikki looks back, and I resist the urge to make a "turning into a pillar of salt" or, even better, an "Orpheus in the Underworld" joke. There's no more sound from behind us for about ten seconds, and at that point, I elect to lead us forward once again. We can't afford these kinds of delays, or to get jumpy at every single thing that goes bump in this eternal night.

Leading us forward, however, doesn't do us much good when the thicket comes to life and wraps its octopus-like tendrils around us. Then it throws us up into the air as we scream our heads off - at least, until the thickets realize we're making noise and start covering our mouths. I know I'm not the only one shaking my head violently, trying to shake the damn thing off, but it's not working. So I stop, and I relax, hoping it'll help. It should - I saw it in a movie somewhere.

It doesn't get the thicket to let go of me, but it does allow me to get an idea of how it's carrying us. Every so often, its grip relaxes for a split second before redoubling. The whole time, we're moving forward, inexorably.

I think the thicket is basically making us crowd-surf. That's how we're moving.

Moving where, though?

That's what I'm hoping we find out sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, even being able to see over the endless mass of plant life doesn't do us much good - the thicket spreads out as far as the eye can see.

And given how much of it we've been roughly cutting for the last few minutes, I don't expect it to have a kind goal in mind.

...Well, crap.


	5. Angel In My Armor

_**CHAPTER 5: ANGEL IN MY ARMOR**_

The thickets carry us a long, long way. Ultimately, they deposit us all on the shores of a lake faintly lit by what looks like a rainbow. Or, more accurately, a moonbow.

Then they stand back, forming a semicircle around us. It's not just us three, though. There's another humanoid figure with us. I'm sure he's a man, based on the shape of his body under his tight-fitting clothes, but I can't get a good look at his face because of his impractically long hair. It takes him a moment to notice us, at which point he parts his hair, curtain-like, to reveal a face covered in heavy stubble. Definitely a guy. But is he human? Not with those pretty eyes of his, I'm thinking. Or his overall feline features. I half-expect his ears to be fuzzy, tufty-tipped triangles under his mane.

"Are you an angel?" Leave it to Nikki to ask the obvious questions.

"Something like that, yeah." He shrugs, and I expect wings to sprout from his back, but no such luck. "The name's Bass."

"'Bass?'" Joe repeats. "Like the fish?"

"Or short for 'Sebastian?'" I ask.

"Yes," Bass says, but it's not clear which question he's answering. Especially because he doesn't look at either Joe or me when he speaks.

"So what's your deal?" I ask. "Your friends..." I jerk my thumb at the thickets behind me as they continue to rustle away. "They were none too gentle with us. I know, two out of three of us are dead, we should be a little more...hardy. But still." I raise my arm to Bass' face, allowing him to see the still-bleeding nicks the thickets left on my skin. Tons of them.

"I apologize on their behalf," Bass says, sounding suspiciously formal. "But it was a necessary evil, I'm afraid. I needed to bring you guys here right quick, you know?"

Joe scratches at his own thicket-induced cuts. "For what? Spit it out, man."

Bass smiles, his pretty eyes twinkling. "I was about to. Not literally, of course. That would just wreck my image in your minds, wouldn't it?" He laughs at his own joke, then his cat smile vanishes, replaced by a deep, pensive frown. "No, but seriously...I know what you're looking for. The Church of Atropos, right?" He sketches what looks like an A in the sand. Or, more likely, a Greek letter alpha. "Valiant you may be to take them on," he adds, "but I warn you - without my knowledge, you stand no chance of success."

"Says you," I mutter.

His jaw twitches, then he says, "I know where to find them. I know their weaknesses. I know how to prove to them that the Fate they worship, they worship her wrong."

So I was on the right track with my guess about Atropos' identity.

"What's your deal?" Nikki asks. "I mean, besides being all Bucky-with-the-good-hair."

"You mean, what's my interest in taking down the Church of Atropos?" Bass asks. "Simple. Their very presence insults my mother."


	6. Road Map Of Jupiter

_**CHAPTER 6: ROAD MAP OF JUPITER**_

"Your mother," I muse. "Atropos herself, I'm guessing?"

Bass blushes, then he nods once. "I don't like to brag," he says. "So Mom and I, we agree that I'm better off staying out of the spotlight. Most people don't even know I exist."

"Yeah, no kidding," Joe says. He scratches his head. "I mean, I knew the gods had all manner of kids with each other - some seriously tangled incestuous relationships in there."

Bass shudders at the thought. "I try not to think about how toxic the fruit of Zeus' family tree must be."

I look around at the thickets as they continue to lurk around on the fringes of the circle they've made. A circle that, unless I miss my guess (and I really hope I do), is growing steadily smaller with each passing second. Please, God, don't tell me this Bass guy is just here to lure us into a trap.

Nikki and I exchange glances - I think she's noticed the same thing. " _What do we do?_ " she mouths.

I return my gaze to Bass. "How long until we can get back on subject?" I ask. "The Church of Atropos. Who are they, and how do we stop them?"

"First things first." Bass sticks his hand under his jacket, roots around, and pulls out a small, tightly-folded piece of paper. "You need to get back to the land of the living, as they say. And in order to do that, you, my friends, are gonna need a map."

I take the map as Bass holds it out. Joe and Nikki lean over me to get a look at it as well - for which Nikki's forced to shine the light from her phone onto the paper. The moonbow above us is just too faint to illuminate this thing. "Wow," Joe says. "This map - was it drawn by a drunk monkey or twelve?"

"If it helps," Bass says tersely, "we're here." He reaches down and pokes the map with one finger, next to a large circle, which I'm guessing is the lake we're standing next to. "And you wanna get here," he adds, pointing to a spot on the other side of the paper, separated from this lake by a huge tangle of spilled spaghetti.

"That'll be fun," I say. "Now can you tell your plant friends to let us out so we can get started on this journey?"

Bass looks at his plant friends warily. "They're circling the wagons, as you might say." He pushes the map into my hands, then adds, "Let the thickets take you where you need to go."

"Where's that?" I ask, consulting the map as if I expect it to form a shape other than pasta freaking salad.

"Across the lake," Bass says quickly. "Now get out of here! The hellhounds are coming back!"

Nikki grabs my hand and leads me into the nearest clump of thicket. Oh God, this stuff is never going to get out of my hair. At least it's not carnivorous, of that I'm grateful.

As Joe gets a hold of his own chunk of thicket, I look down at the map and see that, sure enough, crossing the lake will lead us to a path we need to take. So I clear my throat and say, "Okay, uh, guys, take us across the lake, please?"

The thickets are eager to obey my orders, it seems. They lift us into the air and carry us across the water. Somewhere in the distance, I hear Bass draw a sword with a distinctive loud _schwing_ as a new horde of hellhounds bursts onto the sand below us.

Damn. We got out just in time, didn't we?

Of course, we still know next to nothing about this damned Church of Atropos...but that's why we're going on a long journey, I guess. To find out why we're on this cockamamie mission (as Sheriff Corbin might have said) to begin with.


	7. It's Hard To Play It Safe

_**CHAPTER 7: IT'S HARD TO PLAY IT SAFE**_

Good little thickets, they even get us across the water without getting us wet. How lovely. I kind of wish they could have brought their master along for the ride, though. He seems to know where he's going...but that's where the rest of us will have to step up to the plate. Starting, of course, with me. And Joe. We'll be supporting Nikki most of the way, because she's so green.

I consult the map, checking to see where exactly we are. Across the lake from where we started, which puts us maybe another tenth of the way closer to what I'm really hoping is the exit from the Underworld. The whole Underworld, and not just this region of it, whatever it may be called. There are no words on the map - none in any alphabet I can recognize, at least. I see a few markings that look like they could be some kind of language, written in spiky little words that look like EKG traces, but nothing I can understand at all.

"Bye, thickets," Nikki says, waving to them as they retreat back over the water. "May we meet again."

Joe and I tilt our heads at each other, then he steps up to me and pores over the map by my side. "Can you make heads or tails of this?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "Oh, hell no. Pun intended."

"Pun acknowledged," I say, tracing my finger over the spaghetti path. "It, uh, looks like we're supposed to go this way..." I look to my right and spot a faintly moonlit path of sand bisecting a grassy knoll. I have to laugh at myself for those thoughts - seriously, "grassy knoll?" What, am I expecting JFK's second shooter to be waiting for us? Anything's possible in this freaking Underworld, I guess.

"And then what?" asks Joe.

I shake my head. "Besides this lake, there really aren't any landmarks on this map." I look up and over the knoll, but I can't see anything that could be on its other side. I have to wonder how expansive the rest of the Underworld truly is. I remember seeing the movie _THX 1138_ once - just once, and never again, and I recommend never watching it, ever. Classic it may be, but it's so not worth it, because the movie (at least, to my 18-year-old self) is so boring. But one thing that really stuck out to me from my one and only viewing was the prison scene, because the prison has no walls. And I mean no walls - it's just a seemingly infinite white void, like so much else in that movie. This part of the Underworld, I'm thinking, works similarly, except the void is mostly black. Other than, of course, the moon.

With Joe and Nikki in tow, I climb to the top of the knoll and see nothing but a thin strip of grass, with a sandy path bisecting it. On either side of the grass strip lies a massive expanse of sand sparkling faintly under the moonlight. As soon as I take a step off the top of the knoll, though, a massive edifice rises about a hundred yards away. It looks like a spooky Gothic pile of a castle, but without a moat or even a tall fence to guard it. I lead the way to that castle and, in spite of myself, knock on the door.

Right away, it opens, and of course, _of course_ there's a cloaked figure waiting within. "Welcome to Castle Oblivion," he says in a deep voice. "We can help you find a shortcut to the mortal realm...if you come through this castle."

Joe cocks his head at the guy. "What's the catch?"

"Only that you must surrender your memories."

"Nope!" Nikki tugs on my arm. "I've played this video game before, sweetheart. It does _not_ end well."

"Have a nice day!" the spooky man calls after us as we head off.

Leaving this castle behind, I turn around to see it fade into invisibility. But then two more appear right in front of us, with only a narrow gap between them - they're encroaching onto the path.

"Uh, no." I exchange glances with the rest of my little party. "We're not gonna knock on any more strangers' doors tonight, got it?"

"What if it's an inn or something?" asks Nikki.

"Yeah, but these" - I gesture at the towering structures in front of us - "aren't inns." We move past the two castles, and it sounds scarily like they're coming closer together as we pass between them. Like, are they about to crush us?

Moving on...and then, once these two castles disappear from view, a ring of no less than eight forms, completely surrounding us.

"Oh..." I say.

"...shit," Joe finishes.


	8. Tough Times Demand Tough Talk

_**CHAPTER 8: TOUGH TIMES DEMAND TOUGH TALK**_

It's daunting, to say the least, being surrounded by these damn castles with little to no chance of getting past them.

God, or whoever's up there, I was supposed to be one of your apocalyptic Witnesses. Well, I have no idea what the hell I'm supposed to be Witnessing right now. Maybe if I had access to the archives and all the lore contained within...except I don't. The only remotely lore-like thing I've got access to right now is this stupid map that isn't helping any of us.

Although...maybe one of these castles might actually have some much-needed information? It's a long shot, and I told the others in no uncertain terms we shouldn't set foot in any more strange places tonight. But we might have to, just to see if there's any way out...

...wait a minute.

"Joe?" I nudge him to get his attention. "Are you seeing that same little red light?"

"What?"

I point at one of the castles surrounding us. "There, above the door. See it? One of these things is not like the others."

He tilts his head. "Huh. How'd I miss that? Good eye."

"Come on." I beckon Nikki over as I approach the door with Joe right behind me. Then I grab the door's large wrought-iron knocker and use it for its title purpose, waiting with bated breath for another creepy-ass robed guy to come out and offer to eat our memories or whatever. While we wait, I see something else that really catches my eye. The red light changes to bluish-purple for a moment, and a sigil shines on the door's surface until the red light comes back. I only have to stare for another ten seconds before the color change happens again, and I realize what's happening. The bluish light is a black light, and it's illuminating a hidden symbol written in one of those UV-sensitive invisible inks.

The symbol is a bird of some kind, and that triggers something very recently filed into my long-term memory banks. "Joe, when I asked you who had Crane the first time," I say slowly, "you called them 'the Roosters.'"

"I did," he says. "For some reason, the rooster is the Church of Atropos symbol. I'm not sure of the significance either."

"I don't know much about Atropos," Nikki muses, "but I don't think she'd be associated with roosters anyway, right? I mean, roosters are male."

"Some mythological figures were pretty into gender-bending, weren't they?" Joe asks.

I shake my head. "I can only think of one, and Loki's not Greek."

Finally, the door opens, and a voice Joe and I both know all too well rings out. "I should've known you two would be down here! Dammit, whatever happened to 'Team Witness?'"

Judging from the look on his face, Joe's heart has stopped just as much as mine.

He stretches out his hand tentatively. "D-Dad?"


	9. Big Money Got No Soul

_**CHAPTER 9: BIG MONEY MAKE MISTAKES**_

Corbin doesn't shake his son's hand. Instead, he bear-hugs him. For me and Joe (who's looking pretty skeeved out), that's the first sign that something's not right. Even Nikki picks up on how wrong this is - she doesn't look at anyone, but instead takes a strong interest in her own fingernails. Which, as I've noticed, look like they're getting a little too long to be practical. When we get her home, I'm leaving her with money for the finest manicure she can get in...wherever she lives. (She said something about the Bay Area, right? As in, the San Francisco Bay Area? I'll have to ask later.)

But for now...Joe wriggles out of "Corbin's" embrace and pushes the man back, saying, "I don't know who the hell you are, but you are _not_ my dad."

"He's right," I say as "Corbin" takes on an uncharacteristic "cat that ate the canary" expression. "Sheriff Corbin's too old-school to do what you just did."

"Fair enough," says "Corbin." "Thought I'd try it, anyway. See if you were the real deal."

"What real deal?" asks Joe.

"The Wendigo," says "Corbin." "And the Witness who isn't supposed to be dead. And your wandering friend. But...where are my manners?" He does something else un-Corbin-like - a facepalm. "Come in, come in." He beckons us over the threshold. None of us are too willing to follow him there, but since there's really no other place to go (besides any of the other seven castles, which could have much more undesirable inhabitants than a phony Corbin), we feel like we have no choice but to accept his invitation.

"So," I say as soon as the door closes behind us with surprising silence. "If you're not Corbin - the _real_ Sheriff Corbin - who the hell are you?"

"I'm only a concerned third party who took on Corbin's appearance in an attempt to gain your trust," he says. "And, I admit, to see how good you were as judges of character. Congratulations, you passed."

"At least you're not completely zero-percent accurate at replicating his personality," says Joe.

"You can still call me 'Corbin,' if it's easier for you."

Nikki tucks some of her longer locks behind her ear. "Mister, uh, Sheriff Corbin? Who are you, really? Don't tell me - are you Atropos?"

Corbin shakes his head. "Atropos? No, but I know her. She's a little pissed off that these guys who claim to worship in her name are wreaking so much havoc in the surface world - and it's about to get so much worse." He turns his gaze on me. "Especially with one of the Witnesses lost in the Underworld when she's supposed to live through all the trials and tribulations of Revelation. Or something like that. Let's just say _someone_ in the universe's writer's room lost the plot with you, Abbie."

"Yeah, no shit."

Corbin nods gruffly. "You know, you'd think I'd have a better knowledge of what goes into the Bible. But...hell, I think the people who wrote it have a really bad way of taking my words and misinterpreting them."

My jaw hits the floor - and it's not the only one. "You're..."

"It's all right, you can say it."

Nikki's the first to find her voice again. "You're...God?"

"After a fashion. Reports about my death were, as they say, greatly exaggerated." He laughs at his own joke. "But I haven't answered to that name in so long. Like I said, you can call me 'Corbin.'" He opens another door, revealing a huge, beautifully-lit library on the other side, like something out of a fairy tale.

Oh man, if only Crane were here. He'd think he'd died and gone to Heaven.

"So," Corbin asks, standing just inside the door. "What do you want to know first?"


	10. Singin' In The Acid Rain

_**CHAPTER 10: SINGIN' IN THE ACID RAIN**_

"Oh, gee, I dunno, God Mode Dad," Joe says in response to Corbin's question. "Just...first off, how are you copying him? Did you possess him or something?"

Corbin shakes his head. "Possession? No. I'm not an angel or a demon. And yes, in case you were wondering, angels can possess people too. There's one in particular, name of Castiel, who's done some _fascinating_ work that way."

Nikki gasps. "Castiel is real? Like, _the_ angel Castiel?"

"He doesn't wear a trench coat and messy suit, if that's what you're thinking," Corbin says with a wink. "No, the real Castiel dresses like a plain old human when he's in the field. But he's so eccentric...and that's neither here nor there." He turns to me. "Abbie, I'm sure you have the most important burning questions of all. Feel free to fire away."

"Let's start with the really important question," I say. "If I'm supposed to be a Witness, why am I down here?"

"That would be because another figure from a lesser pantheon interfered," Corbin says. "Chaotically."

His choice of words makes me suspect a certain someone recently made famous by Tom Hiddleston. (Witnessing has cut down on my ability to keep up with current pop culture, but I'll always make time for Marvel. So will Crane, although he's pretty confused by the multiple incarnations of Spider-Man. "Did I somehow miss one of these stories?" he'd asked after seeing _Civil War_ with me and Jenny. "I was not aware that Mr. Parker successfully found the Fountain of Youth.")

"You saying Loki put out a hit on me or something?" I ask.

"Loki doesn't operate that way," Corbin says, very simply. "He has...standards."

"I'm sure." I cross my arms. "Now stop beating around the bush. What was it you said...'figure from a lesser pantheon?' Which one?"

Instead of giving a direct response, Corbin instead hums a few bars of a song - which weirds me and Joe out to no end. Nikki, however, identifies the song after only five seconds. "'Violet Hill?'" she asks.

"You catch on quick," says Corbin. "Yep. 'Violet Hill.' 'And the fox became God.'"

"Oh, I've heard that line," I say, although it's been so long since I've heard it - or any other Coldplay song that's not all over the radio - that it's taken a while for my memory to be jogged about it. "But I thought it was supposed to be talking about Fox News."

"In this case, I'm talking about the garden-variety Fox network," Corbin says.

I cock my head. "You mean the same one that introduced Crane to _Glee?_ "

"That, and they made a TV show out of your exploits as Witnesses," says Corbin. "Which, I'm sorry to say, they've...mangled, to say the least."

I feel like I've been doused with acid. So has Joe, from the look on his face.

"What?" Corbin asks, oh so innocently.

"Are you telling us..." Joe begins.

"...we're supposed to be TV characters?" I ask. "On _Fox?_ "

"No wonder you're dead," Corbin says. "They can either do right by a show...or very, very, very wrong. In your case, I'm sorry to say it's the latter."


	11. The Future Predecided

_**CHAPTER 11: THE FUTURE PREDECIDED**_

"Fox," I mutter to myself. "I can't friggin' believe this...or you know what? Actually, I can. Fox _never_ does a show justice."

"Other than _Fringe,_ " Nikki pipes up.

Corbin clicks his tongue at her. "That's a mystery that will forever go unexplained - how Fox saw fit to keep _Fringe_ going even when no one was watchin. I'd like to say it was because I was a fan, but..." He shakes his head. "The thing about _my_ fanbase is, well...you think any old fanbase on Earth is a toxic wasteland populated with goons and buffoons? Mine, I'm sorry to say, boasts some of the worst."

"Oh, we've seen some of those," I say.

"I knew one or two in my military days," Joe says. "Those were also the kind of guys you'd expect to run away screaming at the first sign of danger. Cowards, they were, once they realized God..." He pauses, realizing he's talking about the Big Guy as if He's not in the room. " _You_ ," he amends with a nod to Corbin, "weren't their one and only suit of armor they would need."

"Foolish men," Corbin says, "have ways of doing foolish things. Like building their houses upon the sand-"

"Matthew 7:26," I say without thinking.

"Favorite among geologists?" Nikki says. The rest of us just look at her until she says, "Sorry, I was quoting a movie. Made by Fox, actually."

"Yes, but we're mostly concerned with what the network is doing, not the film studio," Corbin says. "Where was I? Ah, yes, foolish men. Or women, whatever the case may be." He gives a sheepish smile in response to my own microexpression of irritation. What can I say? I'm feeling a bit touchy today. Salty, even. "They build their houses upon the sand, they're the lawyers with themselves for clients, and they're cocky enough to go into battle with insufficient armor." He breathes a sigh and looks up at a nearby shelf - which, I notice, is laden with historical war texts, including a few editions of Sun-Tzu - one of which, I think, is actually printed in Chinese. Printed modern-style, so likely not a first edition. "You would not _believe_ the antics the Celts would pull, thinking they could fight naked save for their torcs."

"The golden rings around their necks?" I ask.

"I wonder if those would help us in our quest," Joe laughs.

I match his laugh with an even bigger one straight from my belly. "I am _not_ wearing a torc. Especially not if I have to go completely naked otherwise."

"Nobody's saying you'll have to wear a torc," Corbin chuckles. He crosses to the shelf with the war texts and picks a book from the shelf immediately below it - one which happens to be hollow inside. The hollow contains what looks like a tablet - an iPad-type tablet, I mean, and not a wax tablet like what the Romans might write on. He fires up the tablet, swipes the screen a couple of times, and says, "Okay, so, Mr. Crane, officially, ended the last quote-unquote 'season' of _Sleepy Hollow_ by getting invited to join a group of mysterious intent, with no clue as to their identity. That's what's known to the viewing audiences across the multiverse. What they don't know, what _I_ know, is that these people are the Roosters, aka the Church of Atropos, so named not because Atropos has the rooster as a symbol-"

"She doesn't?" Joe asks, bemused.

"-but because they took the name from another section of the overpopulated Fox graveyard that's been largely abandoned for over fifteen years," Corbin says. "It's an _X-Files_ spinoff called _Millennium_. Great show, gone too soon. Anyway..." He clears his throat. "That show took its name from a so-called 'consulting group' that worked with an agenda fixated on their belief that the turn of the millennium would bring about the Apocalypse."

"Sounds familiar," I say. "Anyone remember Y2K?"

"I barely do," Nikki says. "I was only three when the year 2000 started."

Corbin tilts his head. "So as far as you're concerned, Y2K was nothing but a joke?"

Nikki nods.

"But it was pretty serious business back in the day," says Joe.

"Serious enough to have an entire TV series centering on it for three years beforehand," says Corbin.

"Why don't I remember this show at all?" I ask before answering my own rhetorical question, after a fashion. "I watched _X-Files_ back then. Surely there would've been commercials for it. No such thing as DVRs...although I did used to record the show on VHS, so I could skip the commercials...hmm, right."

"The Millennium Group," Corbin says, "was divided into two factions. The Owls, who were secular in their apocalyptic beliefs - no doubt owing to their intellectual leanings, hence the name. Whereas the Roosters believed the Apocalypse would be something more in my wheelhouse." He places the tablet back in the book, closes it, and files it back away. "My theory is that the Roosters deliberately set this up. They somehow rose up from the dead-"

"Haha, TV zombies," Joe laughs.

"-and manipulated Fox into killing you both off - but especially you, Abbie, being one of the Witnesses - in an attempt to trigger an Abrahamic Apocalypse with all haste.

"Naturally, they're not setting off my anger anytime soon," Corbin says reassuringly. "But seeing as my hands are full with tackling all manner of, pardon my French, quantum bullshit - such as my rebellious eldest son trying to live on his own in Los Angeles, and Heaven help him if Fox gets trigger-happy on his ass..." He finally stops to draw breath, at which point the rest of us close our mouths - I know I'm not the only one whose jaw dropped, hearing God slip so deeply into the role of Corbin that he cussed like the real deal. "I'm afraid I can't just place you back where you belong. What I can do, however, is put you on a mission that'll earn you your wings, as it were.

"Get Nikki back home," he says to me and Joe, "and you'll return to Sleepy Hollow where you belong. Then, from there, you can save Mr. Crane."


	12. Mean, Mean Stride

_**CHAPTER 12: MEAN, MEAN STRIDE**_

"So now we got a mission from God," I say, clapping my hands and rubbing them together. "Sounds awesome to me. All right, so where do we get started?"

"I'd say 'just head out the door,'" Corbin says, "but first, I'll have to remove all those other illusory castles from your path. And foremost, you need to know exactly where you're going. I love that Bass kid, but he doesn't know how to write a halfway decent map."

"Bass wrote this himself?" asks Joe.

"The poor kid fancied himself an artist at some point," Corbin says with a breezy sigh. "No, but as the son of the lady responsible for cutting the thread of life, he's inherited her poor creative abilities. Let me help you guys out..." He looks up and down his shelves, then snaps his fingers and beckons something we can't see. That something turns out to be a scroll not unlike the one on which Bass' map is printed, but more new-looking. Not to mention more neat-looking, especially when he gives me the scroll and I unravel it, revealing a far more legible layout of the Underworld.

But then Corbin swipes his thumb over the surface, like he's looking through the camera roll on his phone, and the layout changes completely.

"The layers of the Underworld," he says. "You need to find your way up, layer by layer. Right now, we're on the third - the Roosters probably would've buried you on the ninth, if they had their way."

"Good thing they didn't," I say, copying his thumb-swiping and restoring the original "third layer" map.

"Like I said," Corbin chuckles. "A lesser pantheon. Smaller in every imaginable meaning of the word."

I cycle through the layers myself, discovering no less than nine in total. Guess Dante was right about the number of circles of Hell - or, technically, the Underworld. But hey, let's not mince words here. This place is Hell, or at least the closest we'll ever get to what I was taught about it. And at least I'm probably in a shallower layer than the one Crane's deranged "sin eater" son locked me up in...it _was_ him who trapped me down there, right? I get the details of my cuckoo-bananas Witness career mixed up sometimes.

"Thank you," I tell Corbin. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Joe and Nikki nod along with me.

"Don't thank me yet," Corbin says with a wry grin that feels less like him and more like George Clooney. (Which now begs the question - is Clooney secretly God too? Jenny could give you a good argument in favor of that conclusion.) "You gotta get out of the third layer first. Then the second. The first, though, should be a piece of cake after the second. But only because the second is so hard."

"We'll take your word for it, old man," Joe says. "Uh..."

"No, don't worry," Corbin laughs. "Everyone calls me 'old man' at some point or another. Even if I don't happen to resemble their quote-unquote 'old man.'" He shakes hands with us all - no hugs this time around - and waves us off before disappearing into an alcove at the far end of the room and sitting with a pristine-looking hardcover of a book I'm pretty sure isn't even out yet - _The Hate U Give._ "Oh, and one more thing," he adds before we leave the room. "Beware of Roosters, capital R, of course...but lowercase? Don't forget to try the roc at Vulcan's Roast House. You'll never look at plain old chicken the same way again."

"Vulcan cooks?" I ask.

"He had to take up a second job after smithing stopped paying the bills." Metaphorically speaking, I guess.

With a shrug, I lead the others out the door and out of the castle. The rest of the circle surrounds us still, but only for a second or two before they vanish.

I consult the map, locate us, and point ahead on the path. "Onward and upward, kids. And unless we get any money along the way, let's _not_ eat at Vulcan's, okay?"


	13. Magic At Your Fingers

_**CHAPTER 13: MAGIC AT YOUR FINGERS**_

The journey beyond the castles stretches a very long time - which, as this new and improved map tells us, is only to be expected. There's a single long straight line stretching through an otherwise empty section of the map, which represents this rolling grassland on which we're traveling. I'm not entirely sure what the scale on this map is, so who the hell knows how long this journey is going to last?

I feel like we've walked through seven days of night. If memory serves me correctly, Satan does that at some point in _Paradise Lost._ But don't take my word for it - my memory of that one's a bit spotty. I'm better with Bible verses, and even then I can't call on too many from my memory banks. Crane I'm not. I've been more of the brawn than the brains for Team Witness, historically. That is, if we're counting "Team Witness" as only Crane and myself. Which, frankly, I wouldn't. Not with people like Jenny, Joe, Captain Irving...hell, even Katrina before she completely lost her shit.

It's not a totally monotonous walk, though. Nikki livens things up by humming a song until Joe and I simultaneously identify it as that "Chandelier" song that took over the radio for a while before we died. I respond with "Sympathy For The Devil" - that one's been stuck in my head pretty much 24/7 for years - and Joe defeats us all with a song none of us can figure out.

"'Ain't No Rest For The Wicked?'" he asks, waving his arms like windmills. "Cage the Elephant?"

"Ohhhh..." Nikki says.

I shake my head. "Never heard of them."

"It's their best song!" Joe looks at me like I've got worms crawling out of my eyes. Wait...do I have worms crawling out of my eyes? For real? I actually feel them to make sure there aren't any. Thank God there aren't. Or, I guess, thank Corbin? Seriously, imagining God with Corbin's face, it's breaking my brain. Even more than the thought of worms crawling out of my eyes.

Worms _do_ crawl, right? I'm not as well-versed in science as I am in history and magic.

Just another thing to think about on the long, long walk to the edge of the grassland.

And then we see the gateway on that edge.

A gateway with two giant snakes on either side of it, twining up a pair of columns that tower into bottomless darkness above us.

"Any of you speak Parseltongue?" Nikki asks.

Joe and I shush her, but it's too late. The snakes come to life, sliding down the columns and holding their heads up. Their tongues dart out, tasting the air.

"You think they can see us?" Now Nikki joins me in the shushing in response to Joe talking.

As it happens, I think the answer to his question is "no." Either that, or "yes, but they're going to shoot missile-like bolts of acid at us as a warning."

In case you're wondering, yes, they really do shoot acid, hissing the whole time as spots of the path in front of us sizzle from the impacts.

The two snakes rear their literal ugly heads. We have no choice but to rear ours back.

Nobody shushes me when I ask the most important question yet. "Any of you trained in gymnastics?" Without waiting for an answer, I crouch, then spring off my feet. My plan is to vault onto one snake's head and get the other one to spit at its companion, possibly killing it. I'm running on the idea that the only thing capable of well and truly defeating these snakes are the snakes themselves.

Unfortunately, I'm a little rusty. Okay, a _lot_ rusty. So my vaulting skills, especially without a pole, leave a lot to be desired at the moment.

I'm surprised to find, however, that Corbin's map actually protects me. It doesn't look strong, but holding it up in what could easily be a piss-poor, automatic-at-best reflexive defense, it successfully blocks another acid shot, which does no damage to the paper. Other than staining it, but at least it's not on the printed side, so there's that.

I only spare a moment to look at Joe and Nikki in surprise before I run forward, holding the map in front of my face and chest. Acid hits the other side, splattering in ugly black marks. Flecks of that shit hit my fingers, among other assorted parts of me, leaving little burns that tingle, then prickle, then annoy me to no goddamn end.

Within seconds, I'm at a point where I can jump onto one snake's back. Which I do. Then I race up to its neck, but don't quite summit the head. All I do is stick my hand up long enough to wave a taunting middle finger at the other snake. (They understand that, right?)

That's when the snake fires.

Both of them.

They fire on each other.

The hell?

As this snake screeches and burns under the impact of the other's acid, I chance looking up and seeing the other with its mouth wide open, bubbling as acid melts a huge, bleeding hole in its tongue.

And Nikki's dancing on top of its skull.

Damn. I thought my idea was stupid, but she ran with it like it was a pair of scissors and turned it smart.

Joe runs up, drawing level with the snakes as Nikki and I ride their falling heads down to the ground. "Am I the only one here with self-preservation instincts?"

"One of these days," I tell him as I slide off my snake's head, "your Wendigo powers are gonna come in handy and overtake those instincts."

"Hope not."

Nikki dismounts from her snake as well, and together, we walk through the gate, unsure what's going to come next.


	14. A Kind Of Dream

_**CHAPTER 14: A KIND OF DREAM**_

On the other side of the gate, we're bathed in light for a moment. The ground trembles under our feet, then we find ourselves surrounded by sharp, volcanic-looking rock formations. There's a long, narrow pass in front of us, those sharp rocks on all sides. And guess what's lying at the dead end of this pass?

"Vulcan's." I say it with a hint of resignation and a pinch of no surprise.

"We're not gonna stop here, are we?" asks Nikki.

"I don't see any other choice." Joe frowns as he looks around both sides of the building. "No, there's no two ways around it. Literally. We gotta go in and hope we can sneak out the back or something, undetected."

"Best of luck to us, then," I mutter.

"Can't make omelets without breaking a few legs," Nikki says with a small, chirpy chuckle.

Even Joe and I can't help but join in her laughing at her own joke. Then we neutralize ourselves emotionally and walk into Vulcan's as poker-faced as possible.

The place may be called "Vulcan's," but it feels a little less _Star Trek_ and a little more _Star Wars._ Tons of demons of all shapes, sizes, and colors eat delicious-smelling steakhouse-y dishes, washed down with brightly colored drinks that look less like drinks and more like miniature bath bombs. Somewhere in the very back of the dining room, there's a jazz band playing something that sounds like the old cantina music, but with a key change or two and an additional note every few seconds to make it legally different. Like how Vanilla Ice _insisted_ "Ice Ice Baby" didn't rip off "Under Pressure," no sir.

"Do you have a reservation?"

I start, then realize there's a cute Aladdin-looking dude standing behind a podium, like he's the host. Wait, he's dressed kind of like Disney's Aladdin, shirtless under a barely-there vapor-wear vest and wearing baggy khaki pants...but he's white. And not "white" like "Mediterranean" so he can at least vaguely pass for an Arab, but white like French Wonder Bread. "What fresh hell is this?"

"Depends," says the phony Aladdin. "Would you like it medium-well, well-done, or extra-crispy?" As he talks, he shifts his skin tone just a bit, darkening until he looks a little more like what Disney had in mind. Though he's still not perfect.

I look around to get my friends' reads on the situation. Joe's not really looking at "Aladdin," but instead at the door, as if he expects some hellish assassin to follow us into the building. Nikki, however, is mesmerized by the display of lean but rippling muscle. I mean, I can't help but notice it too, but we're not here for eating eye candy.

"Listen," I say, leaning forward so I can whisper to "Aladdin" without fear of being overheard. "We're not here to eat. We just need to get to whatever's on the other side of this place."

"Aladdin" looks around, then beckons us forward silently. He takes us through the dining room, past the kitchen, and into a narrow but oddly high-ceilinged office, where he takes a shirt and coat off a pair of hangers just inside the door. "I thought I'd never get an excuse to walk off my post," he says. "Oh, sorry, where are my manners? My name's Smith. Morgan Smith. Last name preferred, please. Also preferred, male pronouns unless stated otherwise."

"Do you ever prefer otherwise?" asks Nikki.

"Nah, I just throw that in to confuse the ignorant. It's a common misconception that we hellsprites can shift gender in addition to our shapes, sizes, and colors."

"Sounds like an insult to the authentically genderfluid," I mutter. "Well, Mr. Politically Incorrect, take us out the back door and let us be on our way, then, huh?"

Smith bites his lip. "See, here's the thing - we're not supposed to let people just go through. You got recommended the roc, right? Seriously, guys, it's to die for."

Joe cracks his knuckles, and the twitch of his jaw suggests he's ready to morph into full Wendigo mode. "I don't care that God himself recommended it. We're kind of in a hurry, so..."

Smith blanches, undoing all the darkening his skin's had in the last couple of minutes. Wait, he was actually tan? Guess he wasn't kidding about the color-shifting hellsprite thing. "Okay...now I'm tempted to just let you pass...but no, no, I can't." He looks like he's having some kind of argument with himself. Do hellsprites typically act like Gollum?

"You can," I say. "You can, and you will, 'cause we really don't have time for this business."

This gets Smith's attention long enough for him to stare at me like he's still scared and submissive. But not for much longer. "I think you'll find that you do." His voice drops a couple of octaves, and he himself grows to ten feet in height.

"Well, that explains the ceiling," I say.

Smith kneels so he can talk to us a little better, but he's still a good seven and a half feet at least. "I'll be very insulted if you don't let me serve you some roc," he rumbles. "Would you like it medium-well, well-done, or extra-crispy?"

"Can't do it rare?" Joe quips.

"You wouldn't like it that way. Roc blood needs to be annihilated with considerable heat when cooking, or else it can sneak into you through any open wound in your mouth and poison you dead."

I frown up at Vulcan - for now I finally see him for who he really is. "We don't have much of a choice, do we?" But as soon as he straightens up, I turn to Nikki and whisper, out of the corner of my mouth, "The second he gives us our meals, we flip the table and run out the back door like goddamn bastards."

"Pardon your French," Joe whispers, eyeballing the back door warily.


	15. Scheming Demons Dressed In Kingly Guise

_**CHAPTER 15: SCHEMING DEMONS DRESSED IN KINGLY GUISE**_

Smith seats us at a table almost as far away from the back door as possible. This makes me suspect he's on to us. Joe keeps clenching his fists, and I half-expect him to Wendigo out from sheer rage any second.

"Are we seriously gonna do the flip-the-table thing?" Nikki asks. "Not that I'm not down with it, but-"

"Yes." I reach out and reassuringly pat her hand. "Anything to show these guys we don't have time for their shenanigans. Not now, not ever, okay? Priority one - get back to Earth."

She pats my hand even as I'm patting hers. Soon we'll have some pat-ception on our hands. Literally. "Is it too late to tell the chefs here I'm vegetarian?"

"For real?" She nods. "Okay, remind me not to give you my stone soup recipe. I'm pretty sure the broth, at least, is chicken."

"I'll just make it with veggie stock."

We exchange smiles. She may be very, very new here, but she's a strong girl. I'm really enjoying having her by my side, even if it won't last beyond the time she returns home.

"Dinner is served!" Smith, returned to a more normal human size (and, sadly, his Aladdin outfit and not-so-tan skin), emerges with three sizzling hot plates - they're practically glowing, which is more than I can say for the borderline-blackened giant's cutlets on their surfaces. I mean, seriously. Even if roc blood is bad for you, does the meat really have to be burned to get rid of it? I've never, ever liked my meat cooked anything better than medium, and even medium is pushing it. I'm a red-meat kind of girl, goddammit. The only foodstuff I'll consume at this level of roasting is espresso.

And now I'm thinking, again, of Crane's first time having espresso. That rant about Italians and "sadistic larceny," and then he had his first taste and was hooked forever. Then again, he'd already lost his taste for tea after the Boston Tea Party, like most of his contemporaries. Turning him on to coffee was only too easy.

Crane, if you're still up there, and those Owls and Roosters or whatever aren't giving you too much of a hard time, know that I'm coming back. Team Witness will reunite. I promise.

And in the meantime, I have a table to help flip. Thank you, Joe, for reminding me with a silent three-count. He splays his fingers out over the tabletop, then pulls them back one by one.

In unison, Nikki, Joe, and I reach under the table and push it up and over to the side, making Smith scream and drop the plates. Charred roc meat and the assorted vegetable fixins spill all over his feet, and he jumps onto a nearby empty table in a failed attempt to get away from it.

I'm unable to resist a one-liner before following the others towards the back door. "I asked for chicken, you dickhead!"

Ten seconds later, I'm with Joe and Nikki as they pound on the door, struggling to open it, but to no avail. "No handle?" I ask, observing the door for myself.

"Fucking fire hazard." Joe kicks the door repeatedly, first with one leg at a time, then with both feet at once. The noise attracts the attention of a pair of men who emerge from an office in resplendent royal-purple robes. They survey us for a moment before snapping their fingers, and instantly, cuts appear on all our wrists.

I gasp, not so much from pain as from the realization that the smell of blood is going to trigger Joe's shift.

Which it does.

He at least has the thought to run forward, charging at these two demon kings or whatever the hell they are. They snap their fingers again, and I feel my cut seal, but the damage has already been done. Joe's already in full Wendigo mode, covered in gray fur with black reindeer antlers sprouting from his skull.

He turns to me and Nikki, growls, and charges at us instead. Nikki grabs my hand, hers trembling in abject terror, as is mine. Then I pull her aside at the very last minute, opening a door and taking us through it. Immediately, I hear the noises of the kitchen all around us, and smell the smells too. It at least smells like they have food that's more appetizing than charred roc.

But that's not important.

What's important is Joe not stopping in time to avoid hitting the door with his antlers, which punch right through the faux wood and tear giant holes.

He pulls out, sees Nikki and me in the kitchen, and charges at us again. As much as I hate playing matador with him, we have pretty much no choice. We lead him on a merry chase through the kitchen, out another door, and back into the dining room. Upon seeing us, Smith shakes his fist, grows to his double size again, and yells, "You sneaky b-"

"Bye, Felicia!" Nikki laughs as we run back through the hallway, almost mowing down the purple-robed guys in the process. At the back door, I reach through one of the holes and open the door from the other side, allowing us - including Joe, who's still coming after us, to burst through it and almost crash-land on another sharp rock formation outside.

Joe looks especially dazed, and sure enough, by the time he's back on his feet, he's returning to human form. "You okay?" I ask him.

"If we find a hospital," he mutters, "have me checked out for a concussion. And by the way, next time I go Wendigo, please just immobilize me right away, okay?"

"Non-lethal only," I assure him.


	16. The Temples of Syrinx

_**CHAPTER 16: THE TEMPLES OF SYRINX**_

Onward and upward we go from Vulcan's. No, seriously, the ground really slopes a bit upward. Just enough to be barely perceptible, but also just enough that I appreciate it. It makes me feel like we're actually on our way out of Hell. Literally.

Then again, a little hope can be a very dangerous thing, so I'm keeping my eyes peeled all the same.

I consult the map and see that we've got a truly twisted path ahead of us before we get out of this second level. Along the way, there's one straightaway kind of section - well, more of a gentle curve, but with seven large circles along the outer edge. And we're about to approach that section ourselves. But first we have to round a couple of corners, and not walk into protruding spikes of rock. These things could easily tear our eyes out. _No bueno_ to the extreme.

And then we spot them. Or, more accurately, _it_ \- the first of these seven circles on the map. The circle marks the footprint of a towering, well-lit, futuristic-looking structure. It's a network of metal towers, some taller than others, and all with slanted tops.

"Somebody's compensating for something." Nikki crosses her arms as she looks up to the tallest of these towers.

"I don't think God made these towers," Joe says.

"I agree." I copy Nikki, trying to look all the way up to the top. "From what I hear, Lucifer may just have a small enough penis to want to show this off instead." I wait a moment, as if expecting Lucifer to barge in and whip his out to prove that it's not micro after all. It's probably just average, but from what I've seen of men, that's micro enough to be a source of eternal embarrassment, not being hung like an equine porn star.

"Can we move past these towers?" Joe clenches his fists. "They're giving me bad vibes. I could Wendigo out from these vibes alone."

Nikki cocks her head. "You sure? I mean, it's not like, you know, how a guy can only get off once and then wait and recharge?"

Joe and I both eyeball her oddly. "Uh, well..." He shakes his head. "I never thought of it that way. Well, I guess going Wendigo is like an orgasm in reverse, if I had to describe it."

"How so?" I edge behind Joe and make a "cut it out" gesture at Nikki, but she's on such a curiosity kick, there's really no stopping her. "Does it feel good or bad or what?"

How the hell am I supposed to tell this poor girl how insensitive she's being? Joe, however, to his credit, runs with it, being pretty thick-skinned, although the subtle twitches in his cheeks tell me he's quietly seething in ways Nikki can't know. "It's like I'm ripping apart at the seams, but it's absolute agony. Not even a hint of ecstasy. Haha, and now I'm talking about it like it's a fine wine to be savored."

"Just don't spunk into that wine." A suave British accent filters over to us, and its owner - classic tall, dark, and handsome - steps out of the shadows behind us. "Even I wouldn't serve that at my bar."

I gaze up at him, struggling not to match the smile forming on his stubble-covered face. "Lucifer, I presume?"

He gasps. "Do I know you?"

Oh shit. He's for real?

"Why do you all look so afraid all of a sudden?" Lucifer keeps on grinning. "Relax! I don't bite! Unless...unless you want me to?"

I turn around and steer Nikki and Joe away. Not today, Satan. Literally.

"Oi! Come back!" He keeps on calling out to us, following us as we pass by the first tower. "Listen! Listen to me! I know you wanna get to Earth! So do I!"

"What are you talking about?" Nikki asks, like she's interested in hearing him out. I only pray she's bluffing, but knowing her, I doubt it.

"What I'm talking about is that the Prince of Bloody Darkness needs a fucking vacation!" Now I'm turning around and hearing him out, as is Joe. "Preferably in...erm...which state is the one with the good weather?"

"Florida?"

"No, no, not the one with the oranges and the conservatives. The one where the movies are made! The City of Angels! Of which I technically still am one, wingless or no-"

"California?" Nikki's eyes brighten. "What a coincidence. I'm from California."

"Brilliant!" Lucifer runs forward and takes Nikki's hand, leading her away from us.

"Hey, hey, hey! No! Stop it!" Nikki's got her left hand free, at least, so she can use it to bitch-slap Lucifer like he deserves. He lets her go, then rubs his cheek, pouting at her like a hurt puppy.

"I'm sorry." He actually appears to mean it. "I'm sorry, I...I just want out. I'll take whatever help I can get."

Joe and I rejoin Nikki, and she follows us away from Lucifer, who keeps on standing there behind us. "Help yourself," I spit at him as I pass him by.

I reiterate: Not today, Satan.


	17. La Guillotine

_**CHAPTER 17: LA GUILLOTINE**_

Passing by one tower, two, three, four...it feels like a long, repetitive bit of travel for us, and in the absence of sunlight or even moonlight moving above us, there's really no proof otherwise.

Five, six, seven...but not eight. The seven towers, and no more. I guess if this version of Hell were a little more Eastern-mystic, there would be eight. Isn't eight a lucky number in China? I think so, because the Chinese words for "eight" and "rich" are supposed to sound similar. Something Corbin told me once. Not God-Corbin, the real one. At this point, I think it's going to be way too hard to not imagine God resembling Corbin at all times. I mean, I suppose He could also take on some alternate form in which He resembles...shit, I dunno. Sam Jackson?

Don't tell God I said that. I don't want Him knowing I figured out his true form, you know what I mean?

Beyond the seventh tower, there's a small crowd gathered around some high platform, on which a hooded hangman awaits his next victim. I avert my eyes quickly, not wanting to attract his attention with my gaze. Knowing my luck, I probably would. Nikki, smartly, does as I do, hurrying along with me and forcing Joe to accelerate his pace as well.

Soon, we come across another execution scene, one even bigger than the last one. Like a lot of obstacles we've had to face on our journey so far - Vulcan's, God-Corbin's too many castles, etc. - there's no getting around this one. It's right in our path, and if we want to try and detour around it, our only choice would be to climb onto the sharp volcanic rocks lining this pass. I suppose it'd be just as amusing for this crowd to watch us cut ourselves to ribbons - they'd get all the blood sport they came here for. Damn vultures.

And as we draw closer in spite of ourselves, I realize that my "vulture" joke is a lot less funny when I see that the crowd really is a bunch of vultures. Or, well, they're wearing vulture-shaped hats. But still, they all look like actual stuffed, taxidermized raptors. Gross. But it also reminds me of that one _Harry Potter_ scene where the boggart becomes Snape and Neville makes it dress like his grandmother, complete with a vulture hat just like these. I was...nineteen, I think, when that movie first came out, but I was laughing my head off along with all the kids in Sleepy Hollow's little local theater during that scene. The sight of Snape wearing women's threads, it was just too much to resist.

The magic of J.K. Rowling, _mis amigos y amigas._

What's decidedly a lot less magical (well, maybe more so, but for the wrong reasons) is the execution these people are witnessing. A hooded figure kneels, his head (I'm only saying "his" because the person looks to have a man's build) slotted in a large hole in a wooden panel attached to a larger framework with a sharp, angled metal blade suspended about six feet above him.

A guillotine.

The executioner, himself hooded, now removes his hood for some reason. "It is time," he says in a deep, sonorous voice, "to remind you all of the punishment for so much as attempting to break away from this place."

I gasp.

Joe and Nikki both look at me, waving their hands as if to tell me to shush. Nikki then whispers, "What's wrong?"

"I know that guy," I say.

"Who, the one about to get his head cut off?"

"No, his executioner." I focus my gaze once again on the guillotine stage and get a long split-second glimpse of the executioner's wavy gray hair and lined, weathered face. I almost expect to see him wearing glasses to project a mild-mannered, if timid and unusually touch-sensitive, aura. But down here, he has no need for such an affectation.

"I've dealt with him before," I tell Nikki - and Joe, whom I don't think ever had the displeasure of meeting this man. "He's Crane's son. The Horseman of War."


	18. Hold Your Head Above The Ground

_**CHAPTER 18: HOLD YOUR HEAD ABOVE THE GROUND**_

"Great," Joe groans. "More ancient enemies to deal with. Wait...you said he's Crane's _son?_ How is that possible?"

He's wondering about the man's visible old age, I'm thinking. "How is _any_ of the shit we deal with possible?"

"You talk about this 'Crane' guy," Nikki says, "but I still don't know who he is. An old friend? Well, yeah, stupid question, but-"

I hold up my hand. "No, Nikki, not a stupid question. Crane is...well, he's a singular man."

"Came from the Revolutionary War-" says Joe.

"Yeah," I add. "As in the American Revolution. He was, uh, frozen in time. Sort of. It's hard to explain...but the point is, he died and was revived in, uh, 2013. About 230 years later." I tap my head, trying to see if I've got my timeline correct. I think I do, so I press on. "When he died, he left his wife pregnant, and their boy, well, he got taken in by dark witches or something, and then the demon Moloch enchanted him and turned him against his father..." I blink, seeing Nikki's eyes glazing over as she looks beyond me and Joe. I could just be boring her with the details (most of which I don't even fully remember myself), but... "He's right behind me, isn't he?"

"No," Joe says, "but I think he's hearing us, so he's coming this way."

I swivel around rapidly, cross my arms, and stand up straight to maximize what little height I have, relatively speaking. "Whatever you're here for, Henry, stow it." I watch his eyebrows crinkle at the sound of my voice. "We're not here for the hangman's party. We're not even here permanently."

"I know that." His voice is still as unique as ever. Deep, melodic, and just a tad hypnotic. But I can't let myself be taken in.

"You're kinda in the way." I uncross my arms just long enough to make a small gesture with my index and middle fingers. Looks a little prissy, I know, but I don't mind. "Move."

"Or what?"

"You heard the lady." Nikki sticks her hand in her pocket, looking like she's about to grab some kind of weapon when we all know she has none. "You should listen."

"Yeah, I don't wanna have to Wendigo the shit out of you, Mr...Crane."

Henry visibly winces at Joe's deep cut. "You seek the way out of this world, do you not?" He gestures to the gallows where he was just playing master of ceremonies. "I know a shortcut."

I shake my head. "Uh-uh. We are _not_ going down. We've been trying to go up this whole time. You're not foolin-"

"Sometimes," Henry intones, "up is down."

"Yeah, but this ain't one of those times." Joe is the first to walk past Henry and climb onto the wooden platform behind him. "Stop screwing around, Hank. You're just distracting us-"

Annoyed by yet another dumbass nickname, Henry clicks his fingers at the big, hooded man standing by the mechanism to open the platform's trapdoor.

"JOE! MOVE!" Nikki and I scream simultaneously.

He does, but a second too late. One of his feet is still on the trapdoor when it opens, and he tumbles right in, banging his arm on the way down. A loud, sickening crack is the last thing we hear before he vanishes from view.

"Dammit, Henry!" I run up to the platform myself and gaze into the trapdoor's depths, where beyond, all I see is what looks like infinite darkness.

"Maybe I was telling the truth about that shortcut," Henry says. "Or maybe I was lying. Either way, if you want to reunite with your dear friend Joe, I'd say-"

"Yeah, shut up." I sit on the edge of the trapdoor, waiting for Nikki to sit on the other side. "You ready?"

"Not really."

"Neither am I. _Allons-y?_ "

She grins, grabbing my hand over the very center of the trapdoor's entrance. "GERONIMO!" she cries as we push ourselves over the edge simultaneously, dropping into the same darkness and following the faint sounds of Joe's distant yells.


	19. Finding My Way Back Home

_**CHAPTER 19: FINDING MY WAY BACK HOME**_

There's darkness all around us, but not so much as usual, we're falling forever and oh God, how far off the map are we going? At least I know Nikki's still with me, and Joe's right ahead of us. Well, further down, technically, but still. Following the sounds of his scream, as much as it's easy to simply let gravity guide us, it's no better for my stressed-out brain when we're all traveling at terminal velocity and we can't possibly catch up to him after that head start.

Eventually, we feel ourselves slowing down and landing softly on what feels like cushions, except we can't see those cushions, not when it's dark all around us. Small comfort.

Finally, Nikki asks the most obvious of Captain Obvious questions. "Where the hell are we?"

I fish the map out of my pocket, and Joe creeps up behind me so he can get a look-see as well. "It _says_ we're in the same place where we fell through that trapdoor," he says, pointing to that spot not too far from the seven towers. "Except we're on a different level by now, aren't we?"

I cycle through all the other levels, but each time I look at another one, our little pentacle-shaped "You Are Here" icon vanishes from the map. It only appears when we're on the second level. At least we're getting some kind of reception. And the map appears more than capable of decent self-illumination.

Speaking of which, I hold the map up and use the light to try and get a glimpse of whatever's around us. But whatever surface we're sitting on, whatever surfaces might be surrounding us, they're so dark that they completely repel all light. As Joe and Nikki pick up on this same realization, they both shudder at the thought.

Then there's a small pinprick of light about five feet in front of me - and that's a random guess, given how meaningless depth perception is in an environment such as this. I keep the map held out as I approach it, finding myself barely able to stand on such uneven terrain.

"Ever been to a Tactile Dome?" Nikki asks. "That's what this is like, pretty much."

"No," Joe says.

"Must be in some big-city science museum or something." I keep one hand on the cushioned floor and one held up, allowing the map's light to continue guiding me to that one little star. It feels like it keeps on receding, like a mirage, but eventually I catch it and raise my other hand to grab hold of it. The light temporarily vanishes before bursting forth, penetrating my clenched fist with small but powerful rays. My brain tells me I should feel pain, but I don't. There's no sensation whatsoever from this stuff, whatever it is.

Within seconds, the light jumps up to eleven, and that's when the pain settles in. Not in my hand, but in my eyeballs, which can't handle the sudden sensory assault.

An eternity later, the light clears, and we're no longer in total darkness. Nor are we sitting on cushions of some kind.

We're standing on hardwood floors, with more wood and stone and even antlered heads surrounding us.

"Isn't this where we came in?" asks Nikki.

I nod slowly. "I think you're right. How'd we get back here?"

Joe crosses his arms. "Nice try, Satan. We know this isn't my dad's old cabin. Not for real. Stop fucking with us."


	20. I'm Waiting For The Sun To Come Up

_**CHAPTER 20: I'M WAITING FOR THE SUN TO COME UP**_

Satan, of course, has no answer for Joe. Wherever he may be, it's sure as hell not here, wherever "here" is. Why they want us to think we're going around this hellscape in circles, I'd sure like to find out sooner rather than later.

The first thing I do, of course, is cross over to the door. I'm not at all surprised, actually, that it refuses to open. I tug on the knob frantically until I'm sure it's going to fall off in my hands. Hell, I'm surprised it doesn't actually fall off. Though it's well-maintained enough, it's probably a fake anyway. Not unlike the cabin where I found myself when I was first stuck in this hellhole of an underworld.

"Fugazi," Joe says.

I swear he just read my mind. "Think you can try this door?" I ask him. "Nikki, come with me. I got another idea."

"What's that?" Nikki asks with trepidation.

I look up the chimney, knowing full well I won't be able to see anything up there. "Think we can make this climb?"

Nikki looks at her hands sadly. "I hope so. But I bet my hands will be too soft."

"What, are you worried you'll break a nail?"

Nikki and I both swivel our heads at Joe and glare at him until he shrinks away. "No," she says when we're done with this stink-eye double-barrel. "No, I'm worried I won't be able to get a grip."

"Then you go ahead of me and I'll catch you if you fall. Deal?"

She extends her fingers as she clambers clumsily into the hearth and finds purchase in a crack between bricks. "Deal." Two seconds later, though, she slips and almost falls after her first attempt at the climb. As promised, I catch her, but it's tough doing. She almost slips through my hands too, forcing me to wrap my arms around her waist mere seconds before her feet could hit the floor and break.

I hear a whistling noise, and turn around to send a glare at Joe. "I _know_ I didn't just hear what I-"

"I swear, it wasn't me!" Joe points to the nearest window, which is closed, but on closer inspection I see a small hole in the glass. I approach the hole, unsure if I should peer through it, but potentially cat-killing curiosity overtakes me. A flash appears way off in the distance, then a second hole appears only a centimeter or so above my head.

"DOWN!" I grab Nikki and pull her to the ground alongside me while Joe takes cover as well. The gun, or whatever it is - but I'm about 95% sure it's a gun, anyway - keeps on firing for about ten whole seconds before stopping.

"They out of bullets?" Nikki asks.

"Either that or their gun's on the point of melting," I say. "But that's assuming this gun plays by Earth rules, and I'm sure we all know this one doesn't!"

There's a long pause. No bullets come through the window for almost a whole minute. Then Joe raises his head and almost gets it blown off in the next salvo. How he doesn't Wendigo out, I'm not at all sure.

Then someone steps into the space between the cabin and the gunner's position on the edge of the woods. "Stop bloody firing!" cries a familiar voice.

"Oh, hell no," I whisper.

"What? Who is it?" asks Nikki.

The figure of Lucifer, or that guy who claimed to be him earlier, looks dark and almost invisible at first. Then a pair of massive white wings sprout out of his back. "Shit!" he cries. "I thought I put these things away!"

I lean back against the wall, pounding my head lightly against the wooden surface. "Do we really have to give this guy the time of day? Again?"


	21. You Say You Want Your Freedom

_**CHAPTER 21: YOU SAY YOU WANT YOUR FREEDOM**_

"About time!" cries Lucifer as we open the door for him, against our better judgment. "I'd almost convinced myself you weren't gonna help me, not even if I offered you work with me if and when I get upstairs."

"What would we do?" asks Nikki despite me elbowing her in a failed preemptive attempt to shut her up.

"Oh, I could sign you up for many a job-"

"I wouldn't take one." I actually make Lucifer take a step back just from my fierce gaze. "I have standards, and you don't meet them."

"I meet nobody's standards," Lucifer says. "That, I already know. But some people just have to set such standards aside. Complete failure to compromise is no way to get ahead-"

"So explain why you're down here," Joe cuts in. "Is it 'cause you yourself failed to compromise?"

Lucifer narrows his eyes. "Let's not talk about me. I'm here to talk about _you._ "

"Spare us the snake-oil salesmanship," I say. "And the motivational speakership."

"You say that like those are equivalently awful."

"That better be rhetorical," I say. "But seriously, cut the crap, Satan."

"Stop calling me that!"

"I barely ever called you anything."

"I hate that bloody name!"

"Satan!" cries Joe.

"Satan Satan Satan!" Nikki chimes in.

I'm not down to be that flavor of rude myself, but I'll still tell it like it is. "We just pulled you to safety out of the goodness of our hearts," I say. "Not that you know anything about that."

"About what?"

"Goodness," Nikki says. "Or hearts. Am I right?"

I give her the thumbs-up, and Lucifer a middle finger with which I oh-so-subtly scratch the end of my nose. Naturally, he catches sight of it and pouts until I stop, and even long after that.

"If I said 'please,'" Lucifer grumbles, "would you help me then?"

"Help you with what?" I ask. "Get you out of here?"

I barely even finish talking before Lucifer shouts, "Yes! Please, get me upstairs! California's calling my name!" He takes a moment to collect himself, then surveys us for another moment. "Just as it does for one of you. No?"

Nikki stares back at him, and before I can advise her against it, she says, "Yes."

"Perfect!" Lucifer snakes his arm around Nikki's shoulders.

Joe and I gaze at each other in mingled disbelief and annoyance. "Lovely," I mutter to myself, hoping against hope this sweet white girl doesn't sink us all.

Though, based on how history's gone - history in general, and mine personally, specifically Katrina Friggin' Crane - that hope's going to be a slim one at best.


End file.
